Council leader convicted of fraud following £9,000 fake heritage society scam resigns
Jason Zadrozny will be sentenced on November 27
A council leader who was convicted of fraud and tax evasion after being accused of scamming a local authority out of more than £9,000 has resigned.
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Jason Zadrozny, who was the leader of Ashfield District Council in Nottinghamshire, had denied setting up a fake heritage organisation to defraud Nottinghamshire County Council.
He was found guilty of nine counts of fraud and four counts of fraudulent evasion of income tax after a trial at Northampton Crown Court.
Jurors cleared the 46-year-old of three counts of fraud.
Ashfield District Council said on Tuesday it will elect a new leader after Zadrozny stepped down from the position and resigned from the Ashfield Independents party.
A spokesperson for Ashfield District Council said: “We are aware of the reports that Councillor Jason Zadrozny is stepping down as leader of the council and as a member of the Ashfield Independent Group.
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“The council is looking at governance options that would elect a new leader as soon as possible.
“We will confirm details once those arrangements are in place. In the meantime, all council services will continue uninterrupted.”
The council said Zadrozny has not resigned as a councillor.
Prosecutors told a four-week trial that the Ashfield Independents group leader was “short of money” and helped himself to cash from the Ashfield Heritage Society, which he set up in February 2018.
Jurors were also told Zadrozny was a landlord who did not pay tax on the income from four of his properties.
Opening the Crown’s case at the beginning of the trial, prosecutor James Varley KC said the Ashfield Heritage Society did not exist.
Mr Varley told the court: “He told the council ‘this is a genuine organisation, they need some funds’ and they gave him some funds but it was a scam.”
Zadrozny nominated himself as a chairman and was the only signatory to the account, which was issued a bank card and a chequebook, but the address put on the application form did not exist, the court heard.
The councillor, of Sutton Road, Kirkby-in-Ashfield, Nottinghamshire, told the jury he did not keep the money for himself.
But the Crown said funding allocated to the society was withdrawn in cash by the defendant, while a cinema club created by Zadrozny “was probably legitimate when he set it up” although he later helped himself to its funds.
The court heard that £9,100 was withdrawn in cash from the Ashfield Heritage Society account, while £1,200 was withdrawn from the Classic Cinema Club account.
Both organisations were funded by the councillors’ divisional fund of Nottinghamshire County Council, which is meant to be used for good causes.
Three days after setting up the Ashfield Heritage Society account in February 2018, Zadrozny applied for £7,500 of funding for the group, Mr Varley said.
The money was granted and later all withdrawn in cash, the jury was told.
In August 2018, the court heard the defendant asked for a further £1,600 for the society for “funding towards the cost of commemorative events, badges, poppies and road decorations”.
This was also withdrawn in cash and there is no record of what it was spent on, the court heard.
The Classic Cinema Club received £1,200 in November 2018 and all the funds were withdrawn in cash in June of the following year.
Zadrozny, a former member of the Liberal Democrats, stood as a candidate for the party in Ashfield at the 2010 general election, but came second to the Labour candidate by less than 200 votes.
He also stood as an independent candidate in the 2019 and 2024 general elections, and in the 2016 Nottinghamshire police and crime commissioner poll.
Zadrozny told jurors he gave the cash from Ashfield Heritage Society to Tony Brewer, a former Ashfield District Council chairman who died from Covid in 2020, to carry out the repair and maintenance of war memorials in the area.
The defendant told jurors his paperwork for funding applications was “terrible”, adding: “I wouldn’t be sitting in the dock if I filled it out much more clearly.
“As I go back, I’ve gone ‘perhaps I should have been a lot more diligent and paid a lot more attention to them, and then I wouldn’t be here’.”
He also said the wrong address on the application form for the heritage society was “clearly an error” and he cannot remember why he wrote it down.
Judge David Herbert KC, who granted Zadrozny bail until his sentencing hearing on November 27, told him an immediate prison sentence is possible.